A 33-year-old Lakewood police officer is dead and three more officers are wounded because a parolee with a felony conviction for assaulting a police officer was free to open fire on a public bus in metro Denver. Agent Nicholas Graham, a seven-year veteran, was killed Thursday evening when he and other officers boarded a Regional Transportation District bus to apprehend a hit-and-run suspect. The suspect turned and fired. Officers shot back, killing him. That suspect is Gabriel Steven Garcia, 34 — a parolee with what the Denver Post confirmed was a lengthy criminal history in Colorado, including a 2017 felony conviction for assaulting a police officer. Lakewood police and Jefferson County Coroner Annette Cannon declined to name him Friday. The public deserves to know who did this, and more importantly, who let him walk.
The timeline is straightforward. At roughly 3:30 p.m., a driver fled a hit-and-run crash near West 13th Avenue and Kipling Street. Witnesses gave police a detailed description. Around 6:30 p.m., a Lakewood agent spotted a man matching that description and called for backup. Officers saw the man board a northbound bus at West Colfax Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. They followed him on. At 6:32 p.m., Garcia opened fire. Graham was fatally wounded. Three other officers were shot — two have been released from the hospital, a third remains hospitalized but is recovering. A bystander was also hit; the extent of those injuries is unclear.
Lakewood Police Chief Philip Smith remembered Graham as a
